Eye Tracking: SmartGaze or Manual Coding Which is a Better Choice?

Eye tracking is used to capture the gaze points as an observer performs a task. Eye tracking hardware produces an output video showing where a subject is looking, the subject’s point-of-regard (POR)/ Gaze Points, for each frame of a video of the scene. These gaze points have to be tagged with the corresponding image/object in all the eye tracking videos for all respondents involved in the market research. It’s only after the coding of these videos that we can analyze them for consumer engagement insights.

Manual Coding for Eye Tracking

To manually code gaze data, a person watches a composite video and codes, or scores, information about gaze behaviour. These gaze points have to be highlighted and marked for every frame of the video. Depending on the length of time during which gaze data (length of respondent video) is being collected and the sampling rate of the eye tracker, the amount of gaze data can be overwhelming. To analyze all the relevant gaze data points and to generate heat maps can take weeks and is an extremely tedious exercise. This process can be very time-consuming, cumbersome and subjective (the difference in perspective).

We must also account for track losses when analysing eye tracking data.

A track loss occurs when the eye tracking software fails to properly detect the pupil centres requiring the coder to find the start and end of every fixation (which requires the coder to navigate the frames one at a time around the vicinity of the desired frames).

Generating a gaze plot is the first step in analyzing the eye tracking videos and It can be complex for many first time/novice users. The platform/software offered by current companies can be disconcerting to many researchers. The agonizing process of gaze plot mapping can lead to inefficiency, affecting the final output.

SMART GAZE — AI Powered Coding Solution for Eye Tracking

Smart Gaze is an eye-tracking software which leverages its AI capabilities to simplify this coding process by automation. As a result, labour hours are considerably reduced, which allow professionals to work on other high priority jobs. AI-based coding has counted upon to have equal accuracy, if not better. The system uses historical data to determine gaze/fixations in the videos, which leaves no points of contention over points of relevance. There are no biases involved in the coding process and thus eliminating chances of human errors. Even with the high sampling rate, the accuracy of the output is not affected. It can code thousands of videos in a couple of days time, providing enhanced scalability.

Smart Gaze uses eye tracking coding which is compatible with almost all eye tracking hardware and it provides flexibility to the test subject during video recordings as even low quality (high noise) videos can be analyzed with equal accuracy. It allows for significantly lower turnaround time due to automation. Due to its automatic coding capabilities, it greatly reduces the repetitive and tedious aspects of manual coding. It is the most Cost effective solution in the market. Most manual coding software asks for subscription/license fee. However, Smart Gaze coding solution is based on a pay-as-you-use model which will save companies significant capital. Overall, Smart Gaze is a smarter solution to manual coding which gives you better insights into your market research.

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